Zimbabwe democracy and human rights advocacy group Sokwanele created this Google maps hack to visualize first-hand news reports of election-related human rights violations in the embattled Southern African nation. (more at this cheesebikini post. Thanks, Sean savage) Update: Sean clarifies: It's important to note, however, that this service doesn't illustrate *first-hand* violence reports, as you state in the boingboing post... It shows incidents reported in the media. As the map site stipulates: "The breaches shown on this map represent a small sample of those gathered during our Zimbabwe Election Watch (ZEW) project, which set out to monitor the Zimbabwean government's compliance with the SADC Principles and Guidelines Governing Democratic Elections. The breaches identified under ZEW are based on information derived from media sources. It is very important that the map is viewed with this in mind. Zimbabwe has a highly restricted media environment, and fuel shortages make remote rural areas inaccessible to journalists who do manage to circumvent the legislation and report regardless. This means that urban areas have a greater representation on the map. Blank areas on the map do not indicate 'uneventful' areas; they are more likely to represent stories we are unable to tell and incidents that have not been reported. The map aims to give an impression of the scale and range of challenges facing Zimbabweans as we head towards the March 29th elections. Even though this is based on a small sample of information we have logged since July 2007, it clearly shows that conditions in the country are not conducive for a free and fair democractic elections."...

Oh, alright, I made up the hippie-hating part, but they do exhibit "cannibalistic" behavior, and they are quite large. Mexican fisherman call them "red devils." Here in the US, we call them Humboldt Squids, and here's a short video about an ongoing invasion, from QUEST, a science show produced by San Francisco's PBS affiliate station. A mysterious sea creature up to 7 feet long, with 10 arms, a sharp beak and a ravenous appetite, has invaded ocean waters off Northern California. Packs of fierce Humboldt Squid attack nearly everything they see, from fish to scuba divers. Marine biologists are working to discover why they've headed north from their traditional homes off South America. Link (thanks Lauren)...

"[S]tarting in 2014, Virgin founder Richard Branson and Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin will be leading hundreds of users on one of the grandest adventures in human history: Project Virgle, the first permanent human colony on Mars." Link. (thanks, Sam Coniglio) * Ed. Note: I suppose I should remind the humor-impaired of the calendrical significance behind this important announcement....

Passengers on an Air New Zealand flight from Fiji found themselves being fumigated yesterday, after the crew discovered the aircraft's biosecurity clearance had expired: A bio-security certificate prevents an airline from having to fumigate an aircraft every time it returns here. The spraying left the man with a sore throat and caused a baby to gag and vomit. The construction engineer said the MAF officers took about five minutes to fumigate the plane before leaving the passengers to sit in "a thick fog" as they sealed the door shut behind them. Link, and here's a related story about an asthmatic passenger who thought she was going to die. (thanks, David Carroll)...

A little over a year ago, Skype filed a petition with the FCC asking to extend the Carterfone decision to mobile networks. The Carterfone ruling was what allowed people the opportunity to connect non-AT&T telephones to the phone network, and kicked off an awful lot of innovation in the telephone arena (getting everyone past the black rotary phones). The Skype petition was a bit misguided , because the situation in the mobile world was quite different than the AT&T telephone monopoly of the 1960s. In fact, there is a lot more competition and openness in the mobile world -- and that competition has pushed many of the players to continue to open up at a greater rate, knowing they need to in order to compete.

Argentine celebrity Maradona could carry Olympic torch

A sculpture of the Pastafarian diety makes a statement about free speech and freedom of religion. Plus, it looks tasty.

Luckily for the Man of Steel, rights fights aren't the legal equivalent of kryptonite. Commentary by Lore Sjöberg.